Visit to GK Gallery

GK Gallery is a family venture which combines a love of art with a small cafe.

As we went on a visit to GK gallery we met Gina, her boyfriend and her dad. they gave us a talk about the Gallery and some useful tips and tricks to keep in mind while the designing process.

Gina is art lover and her art gallery exhibits emerging artists work for a 6 week time period to give new comers a chance to showcase their work. The main focus of clients are Salford and Manchester university graduates and also local people. Her small cafe offers hot drinks and cakes in a nice and relaxed space.

Art displays are all framed by MDF boards.

Here are some of the notes I took at Gina's talk.

A great way to increase the value of a property is to have a mezzanine. It easily increases the floor space, cost effective, customisable and even quick to access.

Steal beam on the Mezzanine and L shaped bracket to support the floor also glass glazing to allow natural light in and open up the space.

The main two materials used are plywood and concrete, it gave a very neat and chic look to the cafe. Also they mentioned having plywood behind plaster walls, gives the option to make changes in the future flexibility, thinking ahead is always good.

Having a tile floor and thin metal chairs allows it to be moved around and be seen easily in the small space. Another benefit of dark tile flooring is that it give hide spills and damages also for branding.

Scaffolded on planks of wood table tops gives a great textured look, environmentally friendly and cost effective.

Strip hanging system is a great way of modern design - Anti theft

Roll shutters are perforated to keep the valuable pieces safe from light and value clients art pieces.

Lighting system - flexible moves 360 so it gives an option to move the light where you want especially draw light onto or away from art pieces

Trialing an art piece - across the museum to make people to go see the final piece looking at details and making it more interesting

One of the issues they mentioned was that the stairs are quiet small and should have considered the width as it a curved shape staircase too.

The best way to a business is consider customer satisfaction and comfort. 'It’s where a place where people are' - for example their kettle have different temperature and timing so that it doesn’t irritate people while sat at the cafe- noiseless